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Amazon To Fund Computer Science Classes at 1,000 US High Schools (geekwire.com)
Amazon said its Future Engineer program will fund computer science classes at more than 1,000 high schools in all 50 states by this fall. From a report: This is a rapid expansion for the program that launched in November. Down the road, Amazon aims to reach more than 10 million kids with the coding activities and lessons each year and provide more than 100,000 students in more than 2,000 high schools access to introductory or advanced computer science courses. As part of the program, Amazon also plans to award 100 students with four-year, $10,000 scholarships and paid internships at the company to gain work experience. Future Engineer is part of a larger $50 million investment from Amazon in computer science and STEM education.
Trick question: H-1Bs since there will be less as Amazon attempts to saturate the market with talent and drive down wages.
If you can drive down labor costs from $100k+ to $60k across a pool of 7,000 engineers, you just saved $280 million *per year* in labor expenses. In total for these programs, Amazon is dumping $50 million. If it works, it seems like a solid brain dead business investment to increase their talent look and or drive down wages.
I'm more curious if there really is a talent shortage (or more businesses being cheap) and if there is a real shortage, if it's a problem you can throw money at to fix.
You can throw money at me all day but I won't become a brilliant physicist or a talented surgeon. Do certain computing skills require a similar level of acumen (much of computer science is mathematical in nature though not all tech work requires such talents) or can many tech skills (say software engineering) be simply pumped into young brians?
What's also interesting is if you develop this talent pool of talented tech workers and they ultimately form a competitor that brings your very business down. That would be poetic irony.